Microsoft’s P2P Avalanche

The P2P bandwagon rolls on, as Microsoft now jumps aboard with a new P2P …

The P2P bandwagon rolls on, as Microsoft now jumps aboard with a new P2P application called Avalanche that claims to be an improvement over BitTorrent for file distribution. The details of the new scheme are laid out in this research paper, which is capably summarized in the Register.

I downloaded and read the paper—it's only eleven pages—and the Register summary is good enough to where I don't feel the need to reinvent the wheel by trying to summarize it on my own. Besides, my linear algebra is fairly rusty from years of neglect, so I'm not going to pretend that I understand much more than the fundamentals of how it works. I'm also obviously not up on the growing body of academic work on P2P, so I have no idea how this paper ranks as a contribution to that conversation. I know for a fact that some of our readers are equipped to evaluate the paper, so please feel free to drop into the discussion thread with your thoughts.

Some are surprised that Microsoft is doing research into P2P, but if you stop and think it's not at all odd. First, Microsoft makes a lot of money off of providing the software for traditional, centralized servers. If P2P is the Next Big Thing in serving up files over the Internet, then Microsoft must and will be on board. In fact, you can expect Microsoft to be seriously looking into anything that enables users to get data from one place to the other, and despite all of the baggage that goes with the acronym P2P is just another way of doing that.

Second, Microsoft itself needs an efficient, low-cost way to distribute their own products, as well as patches, upgrades, and the like. That's why Microsoft is piloting Avalanche by using it to distribute beta software. There may come a day when Windows Update uses Avalanche in combination with the large Windows installed base to piece together patches, and then alerts the user when the file is complete. (Lord knows that consumer Windows boxes serve up enough network traffic as zombies. Might as well put them to work distributing patches, too.)

Finally, the applications of P2P go beyond the obvious stuff, like software, music, and movie distribution. Groove, which Microsoft now owns, is a great example of a P2P application that goes way beyond simple file distribution. It's possible that Microsoft might be looking at ways to Groovify their Office suite with Avalanche, especially since the next version of Office will emphasize remote collaboration.